Jagad Guru Chris Butler

Because the word “guru” means teacher, it is often used to refer to teachers of all kinds—be they teachers of music, ayurvedic medicine, cooking, etc. The title “Jagad Guru” is normally used to refer to yoga masters who have disciples all around the world from different places, nationalities, faiths, etc. However, in the deepest sense, “Jagad Guru” means a yoga master whose teachings are relevant to and can be applied in the personal lives of every person—regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, or sect. (“Guru” means servant; “guru” does not mean master. “Jagad Guru” refers to a person who sees himself as a servant of all mankind, not a particular race, religion, or nation.)

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Most of us—whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, civilized or uncivilized—are struggling to enjoy our senses. This is due to false identification with the body.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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If you identify your body as yourself, you will try to satisfy yourself by trying to satisfy your body. You’ll think, “I am the body and I want to be happy, I want to be satisfied.” Thus, you’ll try to satisfy the belly, the tongue, the genitals, the ears, the eyes, the nose, and so on, believing that this will bring you the inner satisfaction and happiness you crave.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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But sense gratification does not satisfy. This is further evidence that you are not the body. No matter how much sense pleasure you have, you are still never satisfied within.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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You can eat so much food that your belly aches—yet you still want more! Even though your belly is filled to the point of physical pain, you, the self, are not full; you still desire to consume more. The fact that the body can be full or satisfied while you still feel empty is evidence that the body is not you.

Impersonalist Philosophy: No Self

If a person sees himself as the Supreme Enjoyer, he will automatically live a life of exploitation. He will not respect others or the environment, nor will he care for the well-being of others. He will lead a hedonistic life of unrestricted sense enjoyment, lording over everything and everyone. Although human in form, he will be no more than an animal who lives by the philosophy “might makes right.”

The no-self philosophy is made to order for people (for the most part highly educated) who really can’t or won’t make the necessary effort and sacrifice to become enlightened masters of the senses but who nonetheless wish to think of themselves as enlightened and wise.

Jagad Guru

Impersonalist Philosophy: Am I God

The chief historical proponent of such “I am God”ism philosophy was Sripad Shankaracharya. Shankaracharya lived and preached throughout India in the eighth century. The preaching of Shankaracharya and his followers was so strong that, practically speaking, it drove Buddhism out of India. Today, throughout India and the world, Shankaracharya’s teachings (or slight variations of them) are still having a tremendous influence on people.

In Calcutta, India, for example, we can see the ridiculous sight of a starving, sore-infested man meditating on the side of the road: “I am God. I am God.” In America and Europe, you’ll find many so-called yogis and gurus who are directly or indirectly in Shankaracharya’s line of “I am God” ism teachers.

Jagad Guru

Seeing the Universe from the Point of View of Sri Ishopanishad

If you understand that you are not your body, then you’ll understand that a life of false lordship and sense gratification will not satisfy you. Therefore, you will not see the gaining of material wealth and power as the goal of your life. You won’t feel that you need things that in fact you don’t really need. Therefore, you won’t be driven to try to get something “at any cost”—including the cost of your life, someone else’s life, or imprisonment.

The material body can be likened to a computer/machine. Each person operates his own private computer/machine, and when he is finished using his machine, it no longer has any value because no one else can operate it. When the operator is present, the value of the computer certainly exceeds the net worth of its ingredients. Without an operator, however, a computer has no useful function, and is worth no more than the scrap value a junk dealer will pay for its component bits of plastic and metal.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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The body and individual body parts are valuable only so long as a self can use them. If there is no self who can use the body, then it is of no value.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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I exist … I will always exist
I am the eternal spark of life
Only temporarily in this mortal frame
The body will die
But I will never die

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Existence is the only reality for the self. As water cannot be separated from wetness, so you, the self, cannot be separated from existence. Existence is an integral aspect of your essence.

A materialist identifies the person they love with the physical body that person inhabited. Therefore when that person or atma leaves their body and just a corpse remains, the materialist will not know what to think. He will be frightened and confused by the corpse — because although the body is present, his beloved is not.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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Concerning a wise person’s feelings toward the body left behind by a loved one: First, unlike the materialist, he is not attracted to it as though it were the person. Second, he is not afraid or repelled by it because he sees it for what it is: a vehicle, or type of clothing, left behind by the one he loves.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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If a loved one of an enlightened person leaves their body, the enlightened person will understand that the person he loved has departed. He will not see the corpse as the person, i.e., his beloved.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler – Science of Identity Foundation

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The material body is valuable only when the infinitely valuable person is present within the body.